Child Abuse | Parental Cohabitation Exposes Children to a Greater Risk of Abuse

On the night of February 23, 1997, Dallas paramedics were summoned to the apartment that Dionne Pickens shared with her son, 2-year-old Devonta, her daughter, 8-year-old Deandrea, and her boyfriend of two months, 25-year-old Abdullah Youself Blackmon. Little Devonta Pickens was unconscious. Blackmon claimed the boy had fallen into a wooden bed railing.

A quick examination showed that couldn’t possibly be true. The boy’s 30- pound body was covered with welts, including no fewer than five sites of bluntforce trauma to the head. Medical examiners said later the injuries were...

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